I posted a little about my great farrier last time. His name is Craig Stark. He is so good with the horses, and he helped me teach Baxter that getting his feet trimmed didn't mean he was going to be lunch for the guy doing the trimming. I have a lot of years experience with horses, but hardly any of it has had to do with teaching a baby manners. I did pretty well with leading and tying, but the foot thing had me stumped. Craig was patient and cheerful about it, and Baxter is now very good for trimming. Last time he actually lopped his ears and almost fell asleep. I always give Craig a bit extra for gas, and a nice gift for the holidays. I am heavily into using bribes to keep an excellent farrier!
This time started out fine. We did Susie first, since she was closest. She is getting up there in age, and is starting to have that old horse stiffness. It takes a bit longer with her, to give her a chance to recover from having her hocks flexed so much. She is a good girl and never moves while Craig works on her.
Baxter was good for both the right side feet. Craig was doing his left front and asked me if Bax had been lame. I thought about it and said no... why? Well he has this hole here... Dang! I looked, and it appeared to be an abscess that had already blown. It was a pretty good hole, but it was clean and dry, so I told him to let it go since Bax is sound now. I started thinking back and remembered that Bax had been kind of off for a couple of days. Now you have to understand that Baby Huey is often tweaky. He plays so hard that he frequently has twinges and soreness which resolve in a day or two. I have learned not to panic unless he acts very painful or he doesn't want to eat. I keep an eye on him, and if he gets worse I call the vet. Anyway, back to Craig trimming Bax. He moved on to the back left, and I'll be darned if the little darling didn't take a swat at Craig! I couldn't believe it! This horse has only ever tried to kick one time, and was so punished for it (Bax meet Mr. Bucket) that he never even thought about it again. I stood there with my jaw on the ground, swearing to anything that would listen that he had never done that. Craig was not upset. He said he knew he hadn't, and tried again. Bax waived his foot around and Craig smacked him. Finally, he held his leg up and got his foot trimmed. I am assuming that he didn't want to weight the front with the blown abscess. I made him pick it up later when I fed, and he was fine about it. Hopefully he will take a break from injuring himself for a while. He lost barrel priviledges after the last time I had to hold his feed bucket for him to eat! That is a long story. I will save it for later
Camille
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